Soundtrack
by Neuronerd
Summary: This is what happens when you put your music on shuffle and write about the first 4 songs that come up. It is the soundtrack to McCoy's life, which happens to be strangely intertwined with Jim's. Cheers!


**A/N: So I thought I would challenge myself with a oneshot since I can't for the life of me seem to write anything shorter than of "War and Peace" proportions, but as usual it got out of hand so it is a little long. *Sigh* I got this idea from another FF story where you put your iPod (or Blackberry for me) on shuffle. I took the first 4 songs and wrote little vignettes about our favorite doctor. I swear #4 was an omen…**

"If You Could Only See" –Tonic (1996)

_If you could only see how blue her eyes can be when she says  
When she says she loves me_

McCoy had an incredibly long day in the hospital. He was exhausted beyond measure, his eyelids felt like sandpaper against his bloodshot eyes. Yet, here he was. It must be Monday. Jim always came stumbling into their shared quarters at Starfleet Academy in the early morning hours after a long weekend of unfettered boozing and carousing.

Not that he particularly cared; it really wasn't any of his business how his roommate chose to spend his time so long as he didn't drag his latest conquest back, which he often did. But that usually happened on Saturday or Sunday. Today was Monday. He softly groaned into his pillow because he knew what that meant.

"Bonsey." Jim whispered to his longsuffering friend. "Bones. Are you awake?"

He left his face in his pillow. He couldn't be lucky enough to suffocate. "Would it matter if I said no?" Came his muffled voice. Of course it wouldn't. He didn't know why he even wasted his breath.

"I met her, Bones." He said with such glee it made McCoy sick.

His breath made the pillow hot and it felt like his face was baking, so he turned his head toward Jim with a sigh. "Met who?" As if he hadn't been through this a million times before. Insert nameless face here. He could probably carry out this conversation in his sleep, it never seemed to change. He quietly wondered if he could actually pull it off…

"My future wife." Jim smiled. "You should meet her, Bones. She is a waitress and she totally digs me. I love her."

McCoy forced his eyes open enough to take in his friend's drunken smirk. "How long have you known this woman, Jim?" He knew it was futile, but he thought he would try just one more time to explain this to his wayward friend. Maybe this time he would get it. Probably not.

Jim waved his friend off. "A couple days, but that doesn't matter Bones! Don't you believe in love at first sight?"

"No, Jim. And neither should you." He mumbled. Why couldn't this kid understand that? It seemed so simple. Jim always gave him crap about being older, but he certainly was wiser. Life had kicked him in the teeth too many times not to take notice. Funny thing was Jim had been kicked too, but he kept going back for more. McCoy was convinced the boy was a masochist.

"Come on, Bonsey. Just because you had a bad experience with your wife doesn't mean love sucks." Jim laughed.

McCoy was relieved to hear the bedsprings creak as he climbed into his bed. Maybe he would shut up soon and fall asleep. "I wish you the best, Jim. Just don't get too involved too fast, ok?" Deep down he really did want to see Jim settle down with a nice girl, but he knew the clock was ticking. Somewhere around Wednesday the wheels would fall off and he would spend most of Thursday consoling his heartbroken friend only for it to start all over again Friday night.

But today was Monday. That meant he at least had a few days of relative peace ahead.

"Don't Shed a Tear" –Paul Carrack (1987)

_Don't shed a tear for me, my life won't end without you  
Long as the night will be, the sun will rise without you_

It was pretty quiet in the bar on the far flung Starbase of….wherever. It really didn't matter where he was because as long as he had been kicking around the universe on the Enterprise it all started to look the same. Jim made him leave the ship and he kind of hated him for that. Sure he complained incessantly about being cooped up in a floating tin can, no matter how stylish and technologically advanced that can may have been. But the truth was, that was his home and he missed it. That was where, for better or worse, the only people he considered his family lived.

He wasn't entirely sure when or where he lost his own family, but he suspected it hovered somewhere around his divorce from the soul sucking demon that pretended to love him. There was no way he could pretend not to be just a little bitter about the whole thing. After all, it was more or less an arranged affair between two of the most powerful families in Atlanta like it was medieval Europe or something. In reality he barely knew her, but she seemed nice enough with her exaggerated charms and soft accent. Damn her, she played him from day one and he never saw it coming.

It all started well enough. She was quick to compliment him on his career as a surgeon and the power and prestige that came from being associated with one of the most renowned hospitals in the country, even if it was by proxy. He did all the hard work: the challenging classes, extremely long hours split between study and practice, and all the political maneuvering that it took to climb the food chain. He was the one who spent long hours knee deep in blood and guts while she basked in the notoriety as a socialite. Whatever. It wasn't like she did much else with her time so he didn't begrudge her a little companionship, even if it was with a school of ravenous piranhas that ate their own if they suffered a drop in social status.

Therein lie the downfall. Staying on top meant evermore energy spent at events and useless things to be acquired for the sake of conspicuous consumption. It kind of pissed him off that she was spending so much money on things they didn't need, but he was raised to be a gentleman and not question a woman's frivolous indulgences. He didn't until it became clear that even as the Assistant Chief of Surgery, a fairly high position considering his age, and working 90+ hours a week wasn't enough to provide for them and their new daughter. He had no choice, he had to put his foot down and that was the beginning of the end.

The situation quickly deteriorated at home to the point that she criticized absolutely everything he did, big and small. No matter the size or scope of his endeavors, it was never enough. He largely bit his tongue even though it was contrary to his nature because that was what a southern gentleman was supposed to do. But when she would scream at him when he picked up or held his precious little girl in a way she did not approve of, he exploded. He was a surgeon for Christ sakes, he had the lives of people in his hands everyday so he was not going to drop or hurt his own child! And oh how much he loved her. He could tolerate even the longest of days as long as he knew he could come home and see her smile at him or wrap her tiny fingers around his. And she loved her daddy too. His wife would often complain about how the baby cried all day long, but the minute he came home and picked her up all was again right with the world and she would stop fussing and smile up at him as he cradled her in his arms. Those were the best moments of his life.

But that was forever ago. The wife had an affair and then had the audacity to blame him for the end of the marriage. He wasn't at all surprised that she had been seeing someone else and in reality he didn't particularly care. It was true that he was never home and when he was, he was far too exhausted for sex. He often fell asleep at the dinner table, which he was promptly reprimanded for. So when she decided to end the marriage he was more or less ambivalent, but his family certainly wasn't. A divorce was a personal and moral failure in their eyes that reflected poorly on the family. He was expected to stay in a loveless marriage when his wife was screwing another guy, but that was a life he knew he couldn't live so he left and became a disgrace to them. As expected, they forever cast him out and cut him out of the family fortune. That was fine, it was less the black widow could get her hands on.

So here he was, sitting alone far from anyone on Earth that was genetically related to him. But it was all good. He had met a young man named James Kirk that he just knew was destined for greatness the moment he sat next to him on that shuttle. Sometimes fate had a way of getting you where you needed to be even if it had to kick you in the ass to get you moving in the right direction. He had been through Hell and back with him and the others, but he wouldn't have it any other way. He would probably always be ill tempered and sometimes downright vindictive because that was who he was, but they would never ask him to be something he wasn't which was more than he could say for his blood relatives. They say you don't get to pick your relatives, but he begged to differ. Family was who you made it.

"Rooftops" –Lostprophets (2006)

_When our time is up  
When our lives our done  
Will we say we've had our fun?_

Bones couldn't count the number of times he had questioned his decision to join Starfleet. He was, after all, almost a decade older than the average recruit. He had already earned a medical degree and had a license to practice before he enlisted. Granted, he was drunk when he signed up because it seemed like a good idea at the time. His family probably had enough money and clout to get him out of his contract, but he was a firm believer in being a man and fulfilling his obligations no matter how stupid you were when you agreed to it.

He had always been so careful all his life to do everything perfectly in order to achieve his goals. He did well in school, scored high on exams, got into a great medical school, and interned at one of the best hospitals. His path had always seemed so clear. He wanted to run the rat race for awhile in the city because it was required, but eventually he wanted to move to the country and open his own private practice. He wanted to go way deep in the hills where he was the only doctor for miles, partly because he liked the solitude but also because he knew that people who lived in those areas often didn't have adequate access to healthcare even under the equitable system of the Federation, so that would be where he could do the most good. At least that was what he thought he wanted.

Since joining Starfleet his life had been flip turned every which way, mostly thanks to his friend and Captain. Bones had always been one to follow rules and regulations, so adapting to military life wasn't much of a stretch for him. But since meeting Jim, that approach had more or less been sucked out the airlock in favor of a fly by the seat of your pants style of coping. It took some getting used to, but he was becoming an expert at impromptu interventions and judicious sidestepping. He caught on pretty quick unlike Spock who still resisted with admirable intensity, but he knew it was only a matter of time before he broke like everyone else. McCoy's first step onto the slippery slope came when he stretched the truth just a bit to sneak Jim on board the Enterprise after Spock had put him on probation. That paled in comparison to some of the things he had recently become accustomed to doing such as fudging records to either show or hide treatments Jim did or did not have in order to cover embarrassing gaffes.

He may have become morally tinged, but he had gained unbelievable experiences in return. When he joined, he requested a post on the Enterprise because it was a peacekeeping vessel and although he was in the military, he detested violence. He thought this would be a rather uneventful assignment. He may have occasional bumps and bruises because accidents happened, but really, how many injuries could you expect from diplomatic appearances and negotiations? Either he had grossly underestimated the nature of the work or Jim's penchant for disaster because it seemed they were always behind the 8 ball and dodging bullets, sometimes unsuccessfully.

He had been witness to more uprisings, battles, and near misses than he cared to account for. Hell, he even once witnessed the destruction of an entire planet and that was something he never in a million years thought was even possible. The means by which it occurred, time travel, seemed equally improbable but it happened nonetheless. Of course he felt bad for Spock when Vulcan was blown to bits; even though the pointy eared bastard often pissed him off with his smug attitude, he still had a heart that was no doubt broken and that was something McCoy just couldn't fix no matter how much he may have wanted to.

He thought he wanted to have a quiet practice in the country, but he was so very wrong. Although Jim often scared him half to death at times and nearly gotten him killed outright on several others, he found that each time he survived he never felt so alive or enjoyed life more. On the occasions that he was close enough to Earth to establish a subspace link with his daughter he would tell her sanitized versions of his adventures and she would listen to him wide eyed. His life was far more exciting than he ever thought it would be. If he lived long enough, he would have plenty of stories about his days as a Starfleet officer to bore youngsters with and he very much looked forward to it.

"I Want a New Drug"- Huey Lewis and The News (1984)

_One that won__'t make me nervous  
Wondering what to do  
One that makes me feel like I feel when I'm with you_

McCoy took a step back from the microscope he had been leaning over for hours. He was tasked with synthesizing a new vaccine for an unusual strain of flu that left victims in an unresponsive catatonic state. Once the victims recovered, usually in 5-7 days, they all told similar stories of being completely aware of their surroundings but frustratingly unable to respond. With symptoms like those, mistakes were bound to happen and one poor engineer was almost put into the cooler because Scotty thought he was dead. It was the thoroughness of a nurse that caught the faint heartbeat of the mechanic and saved him from a premature autopsy. McCoy's sickbay was known throughout the universe as a tough assignment because he ruled it with an iron fist and he very often crammed procedures and protocol down his staff's throats like a drill sergeant, but damn if it didn't finally pay off when it mattered.

He stretched and massaged his tired neck muscles. Synthesizing vaccines was boring and tedious work because each batch had to be tested and if it either didn't work or had unacceptable side effects, it was back to the drawing board for a new batch that had to be tested and so on ad infinitum. He had been at it for so long he couldn't remember the last time he slept. He had to wake up and keep at it because people were depending on him to get it done. He could have asked Spock to help since he had adequate training in all the relevant sciences, but his ego just couldn't let the hobgoblin be the one to nail it. He rubbed his face vigorously and sighed. He needed to stay awake and he wasn't much of a coffee drinker, the lab was about as cold as it could get without frosting over the walls…maybe some upbeat music was what he needed. He ordered the lab's computer to play a random mix of dance tunes and he set back to work.

It wasn't long before he found himself whistling along with the music. Whistling turned to a tapping foot as the beat dictated. He would have bobbed his head but he was afraid he would put an eye out, so he hummed along with the tunes. The humming became mumbled words until he was singing. It didn't matter, he thought, it was early in the morning and he was alone in the lab.

It wasn't like he was terrible at it anyway, he could carry a tune as well as the next guy but he was certainly no professional. He once sang in a boy's choir in middle school but that was only because his mom made him. He cringed remembering those horrible recitals his parents never failed to attend and wearing the same itchy, dorky wool sweater that everyone else did. Who in the hell thought that it was a good idea to make kids wear hot sweaters in Georgia under stage lights? It was a wonder one of them didn't drop dead of heat stroke. Add to this his parents naming him Leonard and he was pretty much guaranteed not to see any action with a member of the female persuasion until he was well into college. It was probably all a conspiracy hatched at his conception to make him focus on his studies, he thought bitterly, since it seemed being a doctor was predetermined as well.

He didn't want to be angry. Anger required energy and that was something he just couldn't spare, so he again focused on the music to lift his mood. He wasn't much of a dancer, but that wasn't for lack of his parent's interference. He had to attend more than his fair share of school dances and cotillions where he had to dress up like a monkey and display proper southern manners at all times. He absolutely hated them because they were overly pompous affairs and it never failed that he got paired with some very unpleasant girl in an outlandishly frilly dress. He couldn't wait for the very second that he could politely dump her and spend the rest of the night standing against the wall until his parents came to pick him up at the end of the night. It was a cotillion, in fact, where he met his wife. Of course he was 12 at the time and it wasn't until later that he learned the ugly truth: the dances weren't just bothersome formalities, they were in fact pediatric meat markets where alliances were formed and arrangements made. It sickened him just to think about it.

There he was getting angry again. Sometimes he thought there was just no use in fighting it; it came as natural to him as breathing. He took a deep breath and again listened to the music. When a particularly good song came on, he found himself actually getting happy. In a sleep deprived moment of inspiration, he actually spun in a full circle in front of his microscope and started to bend back to the eyepiece when a familiar voice startled him. "Smooth, Bones!" Jim complimented clapping. "May I have this dance or did you want to finish this one with yourself?"

McCoy hung his head mortified. If it were anyone else on the ship he could have intimidated them into silence, but not Jim. It had to be Jim. "What do you want, Jim?" He asked wearily.

"You mean why am I here, or what do I want as a bribe not to tell another living soul about this?" He smirked.

The one time a hypo was not within reach… He turned to face Jim and crossed his arms with a scowl. "As a friend, Jim, I am asking you to keep this to yourself."

Jim smiled warmly. "Relax, Bones, I couldn't tell anyone. You have waaay too much dirt on me, but I wouldn't anyway because you are the best friend a Captain could ever have."

McCoy had known Jim long enough to smell a rat. "Are you trying to get out of your Andorian pinworm booster?" He asked suspiciously.

"Could you, Bonsey? Please, please?" He begged in an annoying childish voice just to grind into McCoy's last nerve.

"Go away, Jim." McCoy sighed returning to his work. He had more important things to do than negotiate a non-essential vaccination update. He would just sneak it in elsewhere, he always did.

Jim really knew how to push his buttons like none other, but in the end he found the kid mostly harmless and very charming when he wanted to be. As much aggravation as he was, there was no one else Bones could imagine being friends with.


End file.
